Chesapeake Bay Water Quality Degraded by Politics

There is perhaps no better example of political failure to address a real issue in a meaningful way than Maryland officialdom’s politically driven regulatory approach to Chesapeake Bay water quality. It professes its deep commitment to long-term improvement in Chesapeake Bay water quality, while ignoring the principal current source of Bay water quality problems. Remarkably, the Maryland legislature, the Maryland Department of the Environment and the State’s governor have embraced and adopted new storm water regulations, the sole measurable effect of which will be the radically increased cost of any form of land development within Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay watershed, with an imperceptible effect at best, on Bay water quality.


Maryland has elected to ignore that new construction of all types consumes less than 0.146% of Maryland’s 5,900,000 acres annually (that is less than 15/100ths of 1%). By comparison, forest use comprises 49% of the land area, agriculture – 26% and existing urban/suburban land uses – 25%. And in terms of nutrient loads that degrade Bay water quality, new construction accounts for an incremental 0.28% and 1.07% of nitrogen and phosphorous loads, respectively, whereas forest land uses contribute 9% and 8%, agriculture accounts for 36% and 38%, waste water accounts for 25% and 20% and urban/suburban land uses contribute 20% and 32% of total nitrogen and phosphorous loading in the Maryland waters of the Chesapeake Bay.

In the face of these facts, it is inexplicable, without resorting to political calculus that Maryland regulators and elected political figures choose to ignore and act as if the contribution and effects of uncontrolled agricultural run-off have no effect on Chesapeake Bay water quality. This would be the equivalent of Louisiana officials acting as if the leaking BP deep-water well will have no impact on the shores and wetlands of the Louisiana coast.

If Maryland’s politicians and water quality bureaucrats are the doctor for the Chesapeake Bay patient, the doctor is determined to address only the mild case of acne associated with run-off from already heavily regulated new development, while acting as if the water quality cancer being fed by continuing unregulated agricultural run-off does not exist. In real life, such a doctor would be sued for malpractice and lose their license, but the consequence in Maryland for refusing to take meaningful steps to solve real problems seems to be re-election. Go figure. Political calculus simply is not intended to make sense, except in terms of the office holder and even then only when the ability to think clearly is materially impaired.